


no dead-end in sight

by emmerrr



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Canon Character Injury, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, POV David Wymack, i didn't check, probably not extra-content compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 08:23:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmerrr/pseuds/emmerrr
Summary: The next time she’s back in town, it’s a year later and her eyes are bright and excited, her dreams big and her future ready and waiting. She’s vibrant and unstoppable, and David loves her the most like this.“I’ve come up with something,” she tells him. “I think it’s going to be big.”





	no dead-end in sight

**Author's Note:**

> i got a tumblr prompt probably almost a year ago now about wymack's tattoos and possibly if he ever gets any more and if they're related to the foxes at all. this prompt isn't quite that, but i did use it as a jumping off point to get super emotional about wymack and kevin! enjoy <3

He’s only eighteen when he gets the tattoos; twin tribal flames that cover both his arms. 

It’s something he’s wanted to do for a while, and he’s been steadily saving up his paychecks. His father would’ve killed him for it, but he’s in prison now, and as for his mom? David doubts she’ll even notice. 

He clutches Kayleigh’s hand as the ink first touches his skin, watches her watch as the progress gets made.

“Does it hurt?” she asks.

It does, but David grins, shakes his head. “Nah.”

It’s a multi-session job, and whilst Kayleigh is with him for the first sitting, she’s gone by the last. She’s a whirlwind, after all. Itchy feet.

She came to the States from Ireland on an extended vacation before she’s supposed to go home and start university. They met when she started working at the restaurant David washes pots for, and their connection is instant and undeniable. One night she confides to David that she doesn’t think she’ll ever go back, the words whispered between them like a secret.

So this is the first time she hurricanes in and out of David’s life, but it won’t be the last. She kisses him goodbye, winks, and tells him, “See you around.” She’s going to New York for a while, saving up for a ticket to Japan.

It occurs to David that she never asked him to go with her.

The next time she’s back in town, it’s a year later and her eyes are bright and excited, her dreams big and her future ready and waiting. She’s vibrant and unstoppable, and David loves her the most like this.

“I’ve come up with something,” she tells him. “I think it’s going to be  _ big.” _

She sticks around long enough to teach him the bare bones of what she’s called Exy — a fast and violent sort of hybrid version of lacrosse and hockey — and then she’s off again. Back to Japan to develop the sport with Tetsuji Moriyama. Again, she doesn’t ask David to go with her, but he wouldn’t have expected her to. Not anymore.

And this is how it goes for a few years; Kayleigh in Japan, David in D.C., then Kayleigh in Ireland when she moves back. Their communication is predominantly through letters although there is the very occasional visit, usually not lasting more than a couple of days. He’s kept as up to date as he can be with the Exy developments, but as it becomes more established, it starts cropping up elsewhere. They’re starting to play it on the streets, in schools, they’re introducing it on a professional level. David even joins a team and they play on the weekends, just for fun.

Then one day, when Kayleigh’s back stateside and she swings by to visit, he realises they’ve known each other for eight years. A lot has happened in that time: His father has been killed whilst behind bars, his mother has died, and with nothing else tying him there, David has moved from D.C. to South Carolina.

Now, Kayleigh sits at his breakfast bar while he makes them coffee.

“You look different,” she says.

He turns towards her. The sun’s shining through the window and hitting her just right, her hair aglow, that fiery red that he loves so much. Freckles dance across her face and her green eyes are soft as she regards him curiously, and he forgets to ask her what’s so different about him.

He kisses her instead.

Later, wrapped up together in his sheets, he whispers to her about his plans. He’s been taking a coaching course at a community college and he’s already got a job lined up as a high school Exy coach when he’s finished.

His sights are set on the NCAA, however, and he has a very specific idea of the kind of team he wants to help create.

“I want a team of kids who need a break,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugs, self-conscious. “Kids with problems, from broken homes, kids who’ve been knocked back again and again, who’ve had to fight to earn any scraps of respect. Kids who need another chance, y’know?”

Kayleigh cups his cheek. “Kids like you,” she murmurs.

She’s gone again the next day, and she doesn’t reappear for nearly a year.

This time, she’s not alone and there’s a new fire in her eyes; pure devotion to the perfect baby boy she has in her arms.

“His name is Kevin,” she says with a soft smile. “Do you want to hold him?”

David’s never held anything so precious, so breakable before. Kevin’s tiny hand closes around David’s finger and he thinks his heart might burst.

The baby isn’t his, which shouldn’t sting but it does.

“Whose is he then?” he asks, when he can get the words out without his voice cracking.

Kayleigh’s eyes flash.  _ “Mine.” _

He never asks again. It’s not his business, nor does he have a right to be upset. He and Kayleigh never made any promises to each other, and when she leaves again, it’s clear that they’re parting ways as friends.

It’s fine. David’s got shit to do, and it will keep him busy enough. 

They keep in touch of course, and as Kayleigh’s now splitting her time between Ireland and the US, it’s even easier. Tetsuji has started a college team at Edgar Allan, known as the Ravens. Kayleigh helps out there whenever she can.

David takes that high-school coaching position. It’s the first of its kind at that particular school, so it’s slow going having to implement it from scratch. But he’s gotta start somewhere, and he gives it everything he has.

He sends a card and a gift every year on Kevin’s birthday, although he sees him and Kayleigh rarely. Kevin’s a good kid, sincere and focused with the kind of drive David would expect from the child of Kayleigh Day. He’s already a goddamn prodigy at Exy and destined for stardom. But he’s smart, too, and he likes to read and learn, and one afternoon when David pays them a visit, he spends an hour telling David all about the Ancient Egyptians. 

A serious little boy, but with an infectious laugh, and a good nature. David sends him a kid’s encyclopedia on Greek Mythology for his 9th birthday, which, as Kayleigh tells David over the phone, causes Kevin to retreat to his room reading for hours.

And then the next time David sees him, it’s at Kayleigh’s funeral.

A car crash. A freak accident. Could’ve happened to anybody. Except it didn’t happen to just anyone, and David doesn’t know how to reconcile the fact that a light as bright as Kayleigh’s has been snuffed out, just like that.

Kevin looks so small standing by the grave in his black suit, Tetsuji Moriyama’s hand firm on his shoulder. Tetsuji’s nephew, Riko, stands beside them, his suit matching Kevin’s.

That’s where Kevin will stay now, at Edgar Allan in Tetsuji’s custody, just like Riko is. It seems strange to David that this would be Kayleigh’s last wish, for Kevin to be surrounded by nothing but Exy, to be raised in an environment that is so all-consuming and competitive. But then again, it’s very difficult to argue with the dead, and what the fuck does David know, anyway?

Kevin’s not his child; it’s not his business. At least there’s another kid his age to play with. A brother of sorts.

Still, following the wake, David kneels down before Kevin and puts both hands gently on his shoulders.

“If you need anything — anything at all — you call me. Okay?”

Kevin’s eyes are fixed on the floor, his lower lip trembling with unshed tears. He won’t quite look at David.

“Day or night, Kevin. You hear me? You can always call me. Whatever you need.”

He squeezes Kevin’s shoulders until he glances at him. “Okay,” he finally replies in a small, shaky voice. “I will.”

But Kevin never does call him.

David calls many, many times, but he can never quite get through. He always ends up getting Tetsuji’s assistant who palms him off with flimsy excuses about why neither Kevin nor Tetsuji can come to the phone. Training, schooling, out of town. He’s told that Kevin is doing well, and is pushed off the phone before he can ask any further exploratory questions.

He writes to Kevin instead. He doesn’t want Kevin to think he’s been forgotten about, even though by all accounts he’s thriving under the tutelage of Tetsuji.

Kevin replies at first; short, stilted letters, far too formal for a child. But then these start to dwindle, and eventually, three years after Kayleigh’s death, they stop completely.

David keeps trying for a while, but then he stops too. Kevin and Riko are already making waves in the youth circuit so David can see for himself how well Kevin’s doing. He’ll have to make do with watching from afar.

As for himself, David’s been working steadily. He volunteers at youth groups on the weekends, teaching Exy to kids who’ve got nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. He’s still coaching at a high-school to pay the bills, and the standard of the team has been gradually improving year after year. Job offers come in, but he holds off for now, biding his time.

He religiously keeps up with the NCAA Exy championships. The Ravens have dominated pretty much since it was introduced, but there’s a few others who are creeping up the ranks. It’s unquestionable that Kevin will end up going to school at Edgar Allan and playing for the Ravens, but David likes to imagine that by that time he’ll have his own team and that maybe, just  _ maybe,  _ Kevin might like to come and play for him. But it’s a fool’s dream.

Considering how well David’s doing with this high-school team, he does start to get offers from colleges too. He holds out for now, waiting for a good fit; for a school-president who’ll be open to what David wants to do regarding the kind of players he wants to recruit. Also, he preferably wants to stay in South Carolina.

Near the end of the season in which David’s high-schoolers have had their most successful run yet, David crosses the street to get to the convenience store and gets hit by a car as it rockets around the corner. His hip takes the brunt of the impact, and his injury is horrific. (His team wins though; champions at last. David has to listen to the whole thing on the radio from his hospital bed.)

A shattered hip means a painful, lengthy recovery. It means a lot of physical therapy.

Which is where Abby comes in.

Abby Winfield is beautiful and funny, a smile that could melt the coldest of hearts and with the kind of generous spirit that David wasn’t entirely sure existed up until now. And yet she takes absolutely none of his shit, gently bullying him into doing his exercises even when they’re literally last on his list of things he’d like to be doing.

She’s easy to talk to, and David finds himself telling her things he never thought he’d tell anybody, things that even Kayleigh didn’t know. She never interrupts, never makes any of those sounds of false pity that drives him insane. She just waits until he’s done, puts her hand on his arm, and says, “I hope you know you didn’t deserve any of the things that happened to you.”

When his PT is finished, she gives him a hug, tells him he knows where she is if he needs her.

He doesn’t know if he’ll ever call her. But he likes to know he can. He thinks of her often.

His hip will never be the same again, but he has painkillers to take if he needs to. It’s back to business, and David finally lands a meeting that he thinks might actually go somewhere.

Palmetto State University currently lack an Exy team, and the President of the University, Charles Whittier, reaches out to David in the hopes he’ll get one off the ground for them.

David doesn’t beat about the bush; within minutes of sitting down with Whittier he lays out exactly what he wants to do.

“You’ve got a whole sub-section of high-school seniors who play for their teams but who never get offers from colleges or universities because of a variety of issues; marks on their record, no money, no opportunity, addiction, poor home-life, what have you,” he says. “The kind of team I want to create is one that gives these kids another chance when nobody else will. Give these kids a scholarship, let them get a higher education, let them play a game together. I wanna help them to help themselves.”

Whittier says nothing for a moment, then he smiles politely. “That seems very…idealistic.”

David nods; he’s heard that before. “Sure.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very admirable. But honestly, we would like a team who would be able to compete at the top level. This is the NCAA we’re talking about.”

“I’ll be selecting players from the same pool of athletes as all the other NCAA coaches. I’ll just be taking the ones no one else wants, for whatever reason.”

Whittier still looks unsure, so David leans forward, pins him with a stare. “It’ll be great publicity.” This isn’t what it’s about for David, but he knows it will be a selling point for Whittier. “And we have a chance to really make a difference. And I know it might take a while to see any results, but if you stick with me then in a few years time, we might start to see something really special.”

There’s a long silence and David starts to think that he’s lost, but then Whittier says, “You really have that much faith?”

“Absolutely,” David says, but he doesn’t want to give Whittier an illusions that they’ll be winning trophies any time soon. “You’ve just gotta give me time.”

And then that’s it; meeting adjourned with a handshake, a contract faxed to David later that day. It’s March, which means he has virtually no time at all to find himself a starting line-up before the summer practices are supposed to start in June.

He gets to work.

He manages to sign just enough players to fill the line-up with a few subs left over, but he’s dubious over how well they’re going to work as a team. But a team is what they are; the Palmetto State Foxes.

His best player’s a striker, Seth Gordon, who has a history of drug abuse, a couple of overdoses under his belt, and a volatile temper. And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg; the rest of the line-up is more of the same.

If David can get them to stop fighting each other and instead fight their opponents just  _ once,  _ it’ll be a miracle.

Chuck (as Whittier insisted David call him) checks in a couple of weeks into summer practices to see how things are coming along.

“About as well as I thought they would,” David says, which is the kind of ambiguous answer that Chuck can take however he wants to.

“Excellent. Anything you need from me?”

There is, as it happens. “I need to hire a team-nurse pretty urgently.”

“No problem. I’ll put an ad out ASAP.”

“Hang tight on that,” David says. “I might know somebody.”

And so it’s with a job offer that David finally gets back in touch with Abby.

“What makes you think I’d be a good fit?” she asks once he’s explained everything.

“Because they’re a mess. And they need somebody who’s not going to patronise them or take any of their shit. They need somebody they can trust.”

“And you think that person is me?”

“I  _ know  _ that person is you.”

In the end, she doesn’t need that much convincing.

The season gets underway and it’s every bit as disastrous as David thought it was going to be. The Foxes are all over the place, there’s no cohesive teamwork, there’s fights in the middle of games, there’s a  _ lot  _ of sending offs.

The press, who’d seemed quite taken with the story of what David was trying to do with the Foxes initially, quickly turn on them and him. Silly Coach Wymack, naive enough to think these kids could ever amount to anything. 

It only serves to strengthen his resolve.

That first year, there’s no women on the team, and it’s something David’s keen to rectify going forward. After watching one particular high-school game, he signs Danielle Wilds, who not only captains her high school Exy team but also works nights to help keep her and her aunt and cousin afloat. From the other team, he signs goalkeeper Renee Walker, previously Natalie Shields. Adopted by her foster mother after coming out of juvie, she certainly fits his criteria.

Allison Reynolds isn’t what he’s after on paper, but she’s fierce on the court, and gets cut off by her very wealthy family for choosing to follow her own path. David respects that drive, and signs her to the line-up.

They’re the only additions for David’s second year in charge, and they don’t go down well with the existing players, especially as he immediately makes Dan captain.

He initially worries she’ll break under the pressure, but that worry is ultimately misplaced; she rises to the occasion and earns that position through pure will.

The results still aren’t there, but David can see glimmers of possibility. The girls all work well together. Seth, when in the right mood, plays well. But David and Abby are the only ones who can see it, because they’re the only ones watching closely enough. It feels like they’re the only ones who care.

In the third year, David signs a new backliner, Matt Boyd. The track marks on his arms explain why he’s a Fox before he opens his mouth, but aside from that, he’s objectively the best player David’s ever signed. But his confidence is shot and the casual drug use of some of his teammates has him on edge almost constantly.

David’s not supposed to know about that, of course, but he’s not stupid, and he also can’t really stop them. He’s already had players drop out, or who’ve flunked out; in fact, there’s hardly anyone from the original line-up left.

But still, David believes in what he’s doing here. He believes that he can help, if he just gives them the right environment in which to thrive. But they have to want it, too.

A counselling position opens up on campus, and Abby recommends an old friend from Charleston, Betsy Dobson. Considering the pressure on his players, David has a vested interest in the kind of help they’re getting outside of sports and academics, and it only takes one meeting with Betsy to know she’s ideal. Calm and collected, he doubts she’d balk at anything anyone told her, however shocking it seemed.

Away from Palmetto, Kevin officially starts as a Raven alongside Riko. That year, they both get called up to the national team. Kevin’s a champion, and proud though he is, David can’t help but think of the little boy obsessed with history from all those years ago. He wonders what Kevin’s like now, if there’s any room for hobbies outside of Exy in his life anymore.

He sees Kevin at that year’s winter banquet, the first time he’s seen him in person since Kayleigh’s funeral, and years since he last heard from him.

He wonders, fleetingly, if Kevin even remembers him. But the recognition is there, instantly. Kevin looks utterly disoriented.

David’s eyes go straight to the black number 2 on Kevin’s cheek. “Christ. That permanent?”

It’s not exactly what he meant to say after years of no communication, but he can’t exactly take it back now.

Kevin smiles tightly, but it doesn’t seem all that genuine. There’s something vulnerable in his eyes as he looks at David. Something that’s hard to identify. “It’s a reminder,” he says, “of what we’re aiming for.”

By ‘we’ he of course means Riko, and there’s the other one who’s got a ‘3′ on his own cheek, the French kid. Jean Moreau. But personally, David doesn’t think that tattoo’s going to give Kevin anything other than an inferiority complex.

“Well, good luck with that,” David says, and he’s so fucking  _ sad _ all of a sudden. Missing Kayleigh has dulled somewhat over the years, but having Kevin before him again after so long brings it all right back to the surface.

He needs a drink. He needs a cigarette.

“Your team is…interesting,” Kevin says, awkward.

David manages to smile at that. “Aren’t they?”

Kevin looks like he’s about to say something else when someone nearby clicks their fingers, and someone hisses a sharp,  _ “Kevin.” _

They both turn, and Riko is there, waiting. Jean hovers behind him. Kevin starts to go but David stops him.

“Remember what I told you, kid,” he says meaningfully. “Day or night.”

Kevin nods, but his heart doesn’t look in it, and he leaves without another word, trailing Riko back through the crowd.

David replays the scene for days afterwards, trying to pinpoint what had him so discomfited about the whole interaction. He won’t get the answers for another year.

A few months later, it’s recruitment season again. David’s had even more drop-outs, and desperately needs to bolster his defensive line for the following year.

He hears about a goalkeeper, Andrew Minyard, who Kevin sought out personally for the Ravens and yet was turned down in no uncertain terms. David’s never heard of anyone refusing a shot with the Ravens before, and his curiosity is officially piqued.

He finds out everything he can about Andrew; a childhood being bumped from foster home to foster home, a stint in juvie, getting back in touch with his twin brother and his mother, moving back home and then her dying in a crash with Andrew in the car. Now living with their cousin, Andrew’s on court ordered medication after nearly beating to death three men who attacked his cousin.

He could be a Foxes’ poster child for Christ’s sake. And his stats are unbelievable.

Before meeting with him David looks into the family as well, trying to find an angle that might work for Andrew. His brother, Aaron, plays Exy too. Backliner; pretty good, although definite room for improvement. The cousin, Nicky Hemmick, is a little older, and came home from Germany following the death of the twins’ mother so that they wouldn’t have to move in with his parents instead. (There’s clearly a story there that David’s not yet privy to.) Nicky did play Exy back in high-school, another backliner. He’ll need a lot of work as it’s been a while since he’s played regularly, but an intensive college training schedule will do wonders. 

The point is, David can work with this. He has faith.

David can tell within seconds of meeting him that signing Andrew is going to be a risk, that there’s going to be problems, but he also sees that Andrew is someone who can be reasoned with. He’s someone with a personal code, and the key to understanding him will probably be in figuring out just what that code is. But like any of the Foxes, he needs a chance, and some stability.

Strangely enough, the fact that the Foxes are rock-bottom seems to be a selling point for Andrew, like he thinks it’s funny enough to be worth wasting his time. Signing his family as well is definitely the right move.

Andrew’s in.

Of course, the new team dynamics cause all sorts of problems. A clear divide springs up between Andrew’s lot, Matt and the girls, and everyone else. And then all hell breaks loose when Andrew takes Matt to Columbia and offers him speedballs.

Matt’s been struggling for a while, but David hadn’t exactly been expecting  _ this. _

With Matt struggling his way through withdrawal at Abby’s, David returns to his apartment to find Andrew already there.

It’s not the first time Andrew’s broken in, and David doubts it’ll be the last.

Andrew has a bottle of David’s favourite Johnnie Walker Blue (which is  _ incredibly  _ expensive and no doubt why Andrew chose it) clutched between his hands, but his expression is a little too bored, a surefire sign that he’s off his meds.

David doesn’t know where to start. “What the fuck were you  _ thinking?” _

Andrew doesn’t insult him by playing dumb. “I didn’t make him take anything.”

“No, but you sure as shit gave him a push!”

“He needed a push, Coach. He couldn’t have kept going like that. Even he knows that.”

David closes his eyes and takes a breath. “Andrew, that wasn’t your call to make.”

Andrew shrugs, unconcerned. “Well, someone had to make it. You’re welcome, Coach.”

As extreme as his methods are, Andrew isn’t exactly wrong. It also turns out that he spoke to Matt’s mother ahead of time and got her blessing. What that says about Randy Boyd, David’s not too sure, but Matt comes out the other side, and after a brief period of being just a little wary around Andrew, he really starts to come into his own, both on and off the court.

All things considered, it should have been the most dramatic thing to happen that year.

It’s not. Not by a long shot.

That year’s winter banquet is far enough away that David actually books the Foxes into a hotel. Things have calmed down a bit since the Matt incident but David knows they all want to let their hair down and have fun for a night, especially as their game performances have been just a little more consistent than they’ve been in previous years. It feels like they have more to celebrate.

Afterwards, David and Abby finally manage to corral the Foxes into their respective rooms, and then retreat to their own to get some sleep before their early start back to Palmetto the following day.

David’s only been in his room a couple of minutes when there’s a knock at his door.

“What now,” he grumbles, expecting it to be a Fox coming to complain about something. But when he wrenches the door open, nothing could have prepared him for who’s standing on the other side.

Clutching his bloody mess of a hand to his chest, face covered in a sheen of sweat and trembling all over, Kevin Day is still instantly recognisable. David struggles to process what he’s seeing, but Kevin looks him square in the eyes.

“Please help me,” he gets out, voice laced with pain, and it’s this that kick-starts David’s brain back into working. He steps aside and sits Kevin down on the bed, then picks up his hotel phone and dials Abby’s room number.

“I need you over here. Bring your first aid kit,” he says as soon as she picks up. She doesn’t ask questions.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Kevin says when David’s hung up. His eyes are scrunched up with pain and his hand’s still pulled in on himself. David can’t get a good look. He also can’t imagine what’s happened.

“It’s okay, kid, I’ve got you,” he says, because this at least will always be true.

There’s a knock on the door and Kevin jerks his head towards the door, stricken.

David knows a panic when he sees one. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s just Abby. She’s my team-nurse, she’s gonna look at that hand for you.”

The panic recedes a little and David lets Abby in.

“Abby,” he says, leading her into the room. He gestures at Kevin, and her eyes go wide. “This is Kevin. He’s hurt his hand.” It’s a phenomenal understatement.

“Hello, Kevin,” she says kindly, and she kneels in front of him, putting her first aid kit on the floor beside her. “Can I take a look at that?”

He looks at David, unsure, but David nods and Kevin slowly and painstakingly extends his hand out towards her. It obviously hurts because Kevin’s breath catches in his throat as he tries to breathe through the pain.

“Oh sweetheart,” Abby says as she gets a good look. “What  _ happened?” _

It’s broken, that much is obvious. Kevin’s left hand, his dominant hand, is broken. David can see bone, protruding unnaturally, skin split and bleeding. Hit by blunt force, and probably repeatedly.

“Riko,” Kevin says brokenly.

“You want us to call him?” Abby asks.

“No! No, please, don’t. Don’t call him. Don’t send me back to the Ravens.”

Sickening realisation hits David. “Kevin, did Riko do this to you?”

Kevin drops his gaze. “Please don’t make me go back there,” he whispers, and it’s all David needs to know.

Anger, the likes of which he hasn’t felt in a  _ long,  _ long time, rises up his throat, hot and sharp.

“We need to take you to a hospital,” Abby says.

Kevin refuses this, too. So Abby cleans it up as well as she can with her supply, wraps it up in clean bandages, and gives him some painkillers.

“We need to report this,” David says, carefully controlling his voice.

“No,” Kevin says.

“Kevin, he can’t get away with this.”

“He can,” Kevin chokes out. He’s staring at his bandaged hand, no doubt wondering if his career is over before it really got going. David wishes he had some reassurance on that front, but the image of Kevin’s ruined hand is now seared into his brain.

“Kevin—”

“Trust me. He can.”

David doesn’t push it yet. He’ll get his answers. For now, he’s got Kayleigh Day’s kid in his hotel room, asking for help, and that’s the  _ only  _ thing that matters right now.

“Abby, check us out of the hotel and gather the Foxes. Meet us on the bus.”

“We going home?” she asks.

David nods, and she goes, stopping off briefly by the desk to pick up David’s room key. 

Kevin’s shirt is blood-splattered so David helps him out of it, then helps him into a hoodie of his own for the journey back. Kevin lets it all happen, now seeming more dazed than anything. He sits in silence as David hurriedly packs what little he’s brought with him.

He slings his duffel over his shoulder, then lightly grasps Kevin’s right arm to pull him to his feet.

“Come on, Kevin,” he says. “You’re coming with me.”

The next few months are a blur. 

They manage to keep Kevin’s whereabouts quiet for a while. The story comes out in bits and pieces; what life was like in the Nest, the truth about the Moriyama’s, Riko’s sadistic and violent nature behind the scenes. Whatever else Riko put Kevin through, it’s clear that breaking his hand was the last straw, the thing that finally pushed him to getting himself free.

Although it’s also clear that he doesn’t really  _ feel  _ free.

David’s just glad that he’s out, that he’s safe. He wants Kevin to stay, but he knows it might be difficult; it’ll bring more media coverage their way, it’ll put them on the Raven’s shit-list. They don’t really know how much pull Riko has as a Moriyama, and what kind of reaction he’ll have to Kevin recovering outside of the Nest.

But then Kevin seems to make some kind of arrangement with Andrew. David’s not entirely sure of the specifics, but he does know that Andrew’s promised Kevin his protection.

He becomes an informal assistant coach for the Foxes, which puts them under more media scrutiny than they’ve ever experienced before. On the one hand, Kevin’s a huge name in the Exy world, and his presence brings a shit-ton of revenue to Palmetto. On the other, the Raven’s fans seem to take Kevin’s apparent defection as a personal slight. The cover story is that he broke his hand in a skiing accident, so they don’t understand why he’s left, why he’s not recuperating with the Ravens instead.

The PSU campus gets vandalised, more than once.

But they get through it, and it’s the Foxes’ most successful year yet, although that’s not saying much. Kevin puts in an astronomical amount of work behind the scenes, training up his right hand, and gets to a point where he should be okay to play again the next season.

David officially signs him to the line-up.

And then, whilst desperately looking for a new striker sub after the Janie Smalls incident, Kevin watches the tape of a high school senior sent in by Coach Hernandez of the Millport Dingos. The kid’s inexperienced, and a definite no on paper, but Kevin watches him play, utterly transfixed, and won’t even consider anyone else.

“It’s him,” he says, fire in his eyes that remind David painfully of someone else. “It’s him, or it’s nobody.”

The ‘him’ in question is Neil Josten, and David can tell within moments of meeting him that he absolutely belongs with the Foxes. He doesn’t know the details, but he recognises that look in Neil’s eyes, of someone who’s been burdened with far too much far too young. 

The longer Neil’s with them, the more certain David is. Neil’s a strange one, for sure, keeps to himself and very possessive of his stuff. He doesn’t give much away, and he manages to get under Andrew’s skin almost immediately.

“He’s a pathological liar,” Andrew tells David on one of the occasions he shows up uninvited at David’s apartment, and whilst Andrew’s judgment isn’t always entirely objective, David can’t say that he necessarily disagrees. But he knows there’s scars hiding under Neil’s clothes, he’s seen Neil flinch away when David shouted just a little too loud (and  _ fuck  _ wasn’t that a wake-up call; David remembers all too keenly trying to avoid his father’s rage, and Neil seems to have similar parental issues. David should have known better), and he understands the need to be cagey about your life, to not want to reveal any more than you absolutely have to.

David doesn’t know Neil’s exact situation, but he recognises enough to understand, at least a little bit, what it’s like to  _ be  _ Neil.

Of course, it turns out that there’s a  _ lot  _ more to it than David could ever have imagined, and it all ties together over the most tumultuous year David has ever lived through. And he’s lived through a  _ lot  _ of tumultuous years.

Every time, every single time something happens to one of his Foxes, David’s heart breaks just a little bit more. Everything the world has already thrown at them, and all David wanted to do was create a place where they could grow and heal apart from all of that. But he still can’t keep these things from happening. He’s always too late, he always has to contend with just picking up the pieces after everything else has gone to shit. And he loses one of them completely; Seth, the last of his original line-up standing,  _ dies.  _ They’ll never get to see if he would have graduated, what he would have done post-Palmetto. It’s unbearably sad.

And yet, through it all, the Foxes —  _ his  _ Foxes — thrive.

They get knocked down but they get straight back up again, and they fight, they fight, they  _ fight,  _ because they’ve earned every single victory through blood, sweat, and tears. When Neil gets taken from them, they band together until he’s found; when he’s returned to them, battered and burnt, but never broken, they do everything they can to keep him, the  _ real  _ him, and take him home.

This, right here, is what David’s been trying to build all this time.

A team. A  _ family. _

Which becomes a whole lot more literal when Kevin reveals that David  _ is,  _ in fact, his father.

He doesn’t know how to explain how hearing that feels. He knows he could have handled it better. It’s relieving, feeling like he’s been told something that on some level he’s always known, but there’s also a feeling of such profound  _ loss  _ over how much he’s missed out on, the impact he could have made if he’d only been given the opportunity to do so. If he’d known,  _ really  _ known, then Kevin would have been in his custody after Kayleigh died.

He knows that Kevin thinks he was protecting him by not coming to him as soon as he found out, but it isn’t Kevin’s job to protect David. It’s the other way around.

It always has been.

He remembers meeting Kevin for the first time, that tiny little boy, and how in awe he’d felt in that moment. That was his baby. And now his baby is twenty-one years old and David  _ missed  _ most of it; time he’ll never, ever be able to get back.

It doesn’t do any use to be angry about it, but he  _ is.  _ He can’t stop thinking about how different everything might have been if only he hadn’t been deprived of this  _ one  _ piece of information. But there is nothing he can do about it now; all he can do for himself and Kevin is to move forward, and to try and be the kind of father that Kevin has always deserved.

So he mourns, but he does it quietly, where Kevin can’t see.

It’s awkward for a little while, but they muddle through, and David’s still Kevin’s coach, a role he at least knows how to play. When the truth of it all becomes public knowledge, David handles it like he handles everything else. Gruffly, and to the point. He’s never wasted more words than he’s had to with the press anyway.

And  _ he’s  _ the one Kevin turns to when he wants to get his tattoo covered. Not Andrew, not Neil, but  _ David.  _ They sit in the car beforehand, Kevin’s hands shaking as he wrestles with what he’s about to do.

“I need a drink,” he says, and David sighs.

“After. If you still need it then. But you do this sober, or you don’t do it at all.”

Kevin looks at him, then takes a breath, and nods. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Kevin  _ does  _ need a drink after, and a lot of them at that. David knows a coping mechanism when he sees one, but he also knows that this is a problem they need to address. It won’t be easy, but at least Kevin now has a support system, and David just hopes he realises that he’s brave without the booze.

The NCAA final, Foxes vs. Ravens, is even more dramatic than anyone could have possibly anticipated.

Kevin going out for the second half left-handed fills him to bursting with pride. It would even if Kevin wasn’t his child, but he  _ is,  _ and for the first time David gets to have that moment when he can look back at everything leading up to this moment, knowing how hard Kevin’s worked, and be completely overjoyed with the hard-earned results. He looks at Abby and smiles. “That’s my kid,” he says. “That’s my son.”

There’s tears in Abby’s eyes when she says, “He’s  _ always _ been your son.”

Kevin’s last minute goal has David absolutely dazed, emotions utterly spent after everything the match has thrown at them, but before he can fully process that they’ve won, Riko takes a swing at a helmet-less Neil’s head and is summarily stopped by Andrew, shattering his arm with his hefty goalie’s racquet.

It’s fitting, David supposes, that their season should end with as much drama as it started with.

It’s not until the next day that, back in the safety of their own lounge at their own stadium, Neil breaks the news of what happened to Riko.

His death officially goes down as a suicide, but along with everyone who was in the room at the time, the Foxes are privy to the truth. 

Kevin, understandably, takes it poorly. Whatever Riko had done, Kevin had grown up with him, and David knows as well as anyone that it’s difficult to rationalise things like that. Riko was, for a time, someone that Kevin considered family. And now he was gone. It would take him time to adjust.

So they all do what they’ve always done; they move forward. They move on.

David gets to start a brand new season with his team as the current title holders of the NCAA championships. He gets to watch Dan, Renee, and Allison graduate, the first Foxes to do so since he implemented the initial team. He gets to watch Neil Josten, who had once been convinced that he would end his freshman year either dead or in federal custody, captain the Foxes for the rest of his time at Palmetto. He gets to see the slow, slow improvement in the twins’ relationship. He gets to share in Kevin’s joy when he graduates and joins a pro-team, when he gets to play for the national team again, when he gets inducted into the Exy hall-of-fame, when he celebrates one year sober, and then two, and so on. He gets to live a quiet and love-filled life with Abby at his side.

It’s so much more than enough.

He only ever gets one more tattoo; a fox on his calf, in the same style as his arm tattoos. Kevin comes with him, sitting in the chair beside him with an Exy magazine in his hand.

He raises his eyebrows when David first starts to wince with the pain.

“I’m not holding your hand. Suck it up, old man.”

“Yeah, yeah,” David says. “You can buy me a pack of cigarettes afterwards.”

“You smoke too much, Dad. I’ll get you nicotine gum instead.”

David smiles. His heart is full.

**Author's Note:**

> i love comments and kudos and nice messages on tumblr @emmerrr
> 
> (title lyrics from long road to ruin by foo fighters)


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